an indirect reference to a historical or literary figure, event,

or object—one that impacts meaning by the association or

comparison established

ALLUSION

PYGMALION, the facts

• a mythological sculptor who spurned the love of all women and instead created a statue of the ideal woman

• offended by his actions, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, punishes him by causing him to fall in love with his cold, lifeless creation

• after Pygmalion prays at her temple, Aphrodite feels pity and transforms the sculpture into a living woman, Galatea

Pygmalion and Galatea1890

Jean-Leon GeromeFrench painter

PYGMALION, the implications of the allusion

• one who creates or remakes another person by teaching skills or accomplishments and then falls in love with his or her protégé

• a warning against single-minded pursuit of an ideal: obsession can lead to caring only for cold and lifeless perfection

from “The New Pygmalion or the Statue’s Choice”Andrew Lang (1911)

O maiden, in mine image made!

O grace that shouldst endure!

While temples fall, and empires fade,

Immaculately pure:

Exchange this endless life of art

For beauty that must die,

And blossom with a beating heart

Into mortality!

Change, golden tresses of her hair,

To gold that turns to gray;

Change, silent lips, forever fair,

To lips that have their day!

Oh, perfect arms, grow soft with life,

Wax warm, ere cold ye wane;

Wake, woman’s heart, from peace to strife,

To love, to joy, to pain!

Galatea Before the MirrorClaribel Alegría (1993)

my perfection isn’t mine

you invented it

I am only the mirror

in which you preen yourself

and for that very reason

I despise you.

Galatea AgainGenevieve Taggard (1929)

Let me be marble, marble once again:

Go from me slowly, like an ebbing pain,

Great mortal feuds of moving flesh and blood:

This mouth so bruised, serene again,--and set

In its old passive changelessness, the rude

Wild crying face, the frantic eyes--forget

The little human shuddering interlude.

And if you follow and confront me there,

O Sons of Men, though you cry out and groan

And plead with me to take you for my own

And clutch my dress as a child, I shall not care,

But only turn on you a marble stare

And stun you with the quiet gaze of stone.